ESCO Technologies Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the first quarter 2026 ESCO Technologies Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. On the call today, we have Brian Saylor, President and CEO, Chris Tucker, Senior Vice President and CFO. And now I'd like to turn the conference over to the first speaker today, Kate Lowry, Vice President of Investor Relations. Kate, now you have the floor.

Thank you. Statements made during this call, which are not strictly historical, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Federal Securities Law. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions, and actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties that exist in the company's operations and business environment, including, but not limited to, the risk factors referenced in the company's press release issued today, which will be filed as an exhibit to the company's Form 8KB file. We undertake no duty to update or revise any forward-looking statements except as we be required by applicable laws or regulations. In addition, during this call, the company may discuss non-GAAP financial measures not driving the company's operating results. The reconciliation of these measures with the most comparable GAAP measures can be found in the press release issued today and found on the company's website at www.escotechnologies.com under the link Investor Relations. Now I'll turn the call over to Brian.

Thanks, Kate, and thanks, everyone, for joining today's call. We are pleased to meet with you this afternoon to discuss ESCO's strong first quarter results, which have our fiscal 2026 off to a great start. We booked over $550 million in orders in the first quarter, which is an increase of 143% over the prior year. All three of our segments saw double-digit orders grow, led by strong aerospace demand and large Navy orders at Maritime and Globe. We believe in the long-term growth drivers across our end markets, and it was great to see the positive momentum across our businesses to start the year. Top-line sales growth of 35%. combined with 380 points of adjusted EBIT margin expansion, drove a 73% year-over-year increase in adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations to a Q1 record of $1.64 per share. Our exceptional financial results for the quarter are a testament to our strategic positioning across our served markets combined with disciplined executions by our global team. Chris will take us through all of the financial details in the quarter. But before we get to that, I want to give you a few comments on each of the segments. Let's start with aerospace and defense. As I mentioned, we're seeing tremendous order strength on both US and UK Navy programs from the maritime business and from our organic Navy business. In addition, sales were up 76% in the quarter, driven by the addition of maritime and double-digit organic growth across our Navy and aerospace programs. The growth story here remains intact, driven by increasing build rates for commercial aerospace OEMs and sizable investments from our defense customers as they refresh and expand their capabilities. Overall, we're seeing the benefits of our A&D segment's sharper focus on the aerospace and Navy markets, where the long-term outlook remains quite positive. Switching over to our utility solutions group, the results here were a little bit more mixed in the quarter. Orders were up double digits with very strong order flow for services, condition monitoring, and offline test equipment at Doble. But this was partially offset by lower demand in our renewables business. Sales were up modestly over the prior year as renewable headwinds largely offset the 6% revenue growth at Doble. Overall, we remain quite excited about the outlook for our utilities business. The majority of the activity here is driven by utility capital spending focused on grid reliability and capacity increases, and we continue to see those forecasts grow. ESCO's capabilities have a clear role to play in assisting utilities to meet growing electricity demand, and we remain bullish on the long-term prospects for growth here. As we have discussed previously, the renewables market is recalibrating right now as U.S. developers focus on completing current projects in order to satisfy the safe harbor provisions related to tax credits which expire in July. This has slowed domestic renewables investments in the near term, but we continue to believe that longer term, renewables will play a vital role as a cost-competitive source of generation as utilities work to meet the increasing demand for electric power. Finally, I'll touch on the test business, which had a robust start to the year, with orders up 17% over the prior year and revenue up 27%. This business had a nice year of recovery in 2025, and it's great to see that momentum continue with significant growth during the first quarter. This is a technology-driven business with broad capabilities to serve customers across the RF test and measurement and industrial shielding markets. The team here is executing very well, and we're excited the outlook for TESS continues to improve. Overall, our Q1 results got us off to a great start for the year. With record backlog and continuing strength across our businesses, we are raising our four-year sale and earnings guidance. With that, I'll turn it over to Chris, who will run you through the financial details for the quarter.